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photo hosting

The recent acquisition of Flickr by SmugMug tempted me to move away from PhotoShelter…and I’m going to do just that. But…there’s a twist…

I’ve used PhotoShelter to host and display photos on the web–and to sell prints–for a few years. Prior to that, I used SmugMug for a stretch. Both services work well and I have no real complaints about either one. That said, I rarely sell prints, so paying a monthly fee for these services seemed like throwing money away.

While I was tempted by the combination of SmugMug and Flickr–thinking the folks at SmugMug will capitalize on some sort of synergy between the two platforms–I continued to poke around for other options…

…and I discovered Darkroom.Tech. They offer a free hosting option (no monthly charges but there is a 15% Darkroom Fee on sales). As is typical with “freemium” business models, the user can upgrade to a paid plan to gain more features.

I haven’t ordered any sample prints yet…but will soon. Darkroom claims they produce “museum-quality products.” I’m looking forward to finding out what this means.

I’ve tried SmugMug and Zenfolio, but I want to eliminate Flash from all of my sites and services (buggy, insecure, inconsistent support, all the usual reasons), and both of those services still often revert to Flash for slideshows and navigation.

I might give PhotoShelter a try, as it looks like they have embraced HTML5 more completely, but they want credit card info for a 14-day trial. It bugs me that some companies still lean on this old “cancel or get billed” tactic, it gives me the impression that they don’t have enough confidence in their platform, and must trick me into staying. Perhaps that is the price of a Flash-free existence.